


Part of the Plan

by HardlyFair



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Banter, Biblical References, Crowley’s tattoo, Fine Dining, First Kiss, Food Metaphors, Historical References, Love Confessions, M/M, Mild arguments, Mutual Pining, POV Aziraphale (Good Omens), Post-Canon Fix-It, The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens), Vintage Cars, discussions of Aziraphale’s badness, love as warmth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-04-06 03:10:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19054042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HardlyFair/pseuds/HardlyFair
Summary: In which things do not return to the exact way they were Before.





	Part of the Plan

—

 

 _Oh, no,_ thought Aziraphale, with a breath of mild panic. _This can’t possibly be part of the Plan._

 

\---

 

  The file cabinets in the basement were eighty stories high, somehow, all missing a vital signature or two. Papers on Crowley’s performance reviews lacked any significant mention of Aziraphale until the week leading up to the end of times - a severe oversight on Hell’s part.

  This was juxtaposed with Heaven’s system. Organized files and beautiful, personal comments on every status report, filled with flowery prose and sprayed with perfume. The secretaries in Heaven were some of the most fine-smelling and happy angels in the whole universe. If any angel was capable of being happy while destined to work in a vast, white, empty office.

  Aziraphale thought this was fitting, given the fundamental differences between him and Crowley.

  Crowley, who drove the black Bentley while it was on fire (horrendous for the environment, _consider the CO2, Crowley_ ), and Aziraphale, who took the public London buses around the city in search of books and conversed with troubled young women and gave advice to people who seemed particularly downtrodden.

  He’d considered it for thousands of years. Them. Not his punishment for fraternizing, not anymore since that had been attempted to be done to him already, but the semantics of their very Arrangement. Past the Arrangement, actually, into more intimate territory. 

  Truly, _this,_ him sitting besotted in the front seat of the Bentley beside Crowley driving faster than a Japanese bullet train, couldn’t be part of the Plan. If everything always had to happen the exact way it should according to the Plan, _this_ wouldn’t be included in the instructions.

  Which meant something had gone terribly wrong in the Ineffable Plan.

  It had to have, naturally, except that the Plan was always correct and true and accurate. What on earth was going on?

  “Stop doing that,” said Crowley.

  “Doing what?”

  “Biting your nails, they’ll just grow back. There’s no point.”

  Aziraphale pulled his fingers from his mouth. Upon inspection, his nails remained perfectly short and manicured.

  “Terribly rude of me,” Aziraphale muttered, having been lost in his thoughts during their drive. “My apologies.”

  Crowley drove on. The speed was frightening.

  Aziraphale turned to Crowley. His hand fluttered, flexing at the buttons of his waistcoat.

  Crowley rolled his eyes, as if to say, _get with the times and dress properly, angel_.

  “Do you think the Ineffable Plan always happens the way it’s meant to?”

  Surprised, Crowley glanced to him. Vague spots of his yellow eyes were visible through the black tint of his glasses.“Thought we had covered that with Gabriel and the like. Great Plan versus the Ineffable Plan.”

  “Yes, but do you think the Ineffable Plan could be - flawed?”

  Crowley started, his dark brows rising high. His long fingers clenched on the steering wheel - if he so pleased, he could have piloted it by sheer force of willpower, but Crowley genuinely enjoyed the feel of the Bentley’s leather.

  After a pause, Crowley’s mouth stretched into a grin. He looked immensely pleased.

  “Angel,” gloated Crowley, “have I sewn doubt into your mind?”

  “Absolutely not. It’s nothing to do with you, something I have been pondering since our day with Adam Young a few weeks ago.”

  “It wouldn’t really be so bad if I had.”

  “What?”

  “If I had made you doubt, that is, it wouldn’t really be so bad.”

  Aziraphale puffed out his chest. Stepping into this conversation, instigating it, had been the wrong thing to do. Crowley was terrible. Nodding curtly, he said, “Yes, it would be.”

  “Well, now that everyone’s bound to leave us alone for at least a few centuries, a little doubt is hardly going to be noticed by anyone, is it?”

  And there was the tempting. Temptation, in its finest form, was a little thought one couldn’t get out of one’s head, like a broken record of _you could, you could, you can,_ which one then proceeded to try and justify.

  In its worst form, temptation was Anthony Crowley.

  Aziraphale struggled. “It isn’t like we have been profoundly well-supervised these past few centuries, anyway.”

  There was no doubt in Aziraphale’s mind. Like he’d said - absolutely not. Doubting would have made him less of an angel. Of course the Ineffable Plan was just that - ineffable. Unchangeable, extreme, overwhelming. Inevitable. If he was meant to doubt, he would doubt, but certainly no great being would want him to _doubt,_  would they?

  The two of them, him and Crowley, were simple figures in a heavenly plot that had been going and would go on for all of eternity. Anything they did was undeniably included in the Plan, as such, but that meant that anything Aziraphale thought or said or did was _according_ to such Plan.

  And that couldn’t have been the case. Feeling as he did for a _demon_ \- that could not be part of the Plan.

  The Bentley veered off the road to fly past a slow cab as Crowley hauled the wheel to the left. Aziraphale’s hand shot out to seize the bar above his window. Crowley took his turns too hard, and it was illegal to be going a hundred kilometers an hour in central London. Aziraphale had studied human law for millenium, and often followed it to a tee.

  He closed his eyes and drew a long breath. Wasn’t he meant to love all creatures?

  “There’s no one looking after us,” Crowley said, as if pensive. Then, “If you don’t like my driving, miracle yourself away.”

  His tone was reproachful. He side-eyed Aziraphale as he said it, as if expecting Aziraphale to vanish at once, given semi-polite permission.

  “I _don’t_ like your driving.” Aziraphale kept sitting in the passenger’s seat.

  “I could miracle you away,” muttered Crowley.

  “Don’t.”

  “I could miracle you into a duck.”

  “ _Crowley,”_  Aziraphale admonished. “Can you even call what demons do ‘miracles’?”

  Crowley shrugged, focused on the blur of the road before them. It seemed like everything was always a blur in front of them. “Demonic miracles.”

  ‘ _Little demonic miracle of my own’,_  a bag of priceless books outstretched towards him, air raid sirens, and the burning wreckage of a hallowed London church beneath Aziraphale’s feet.

  Did Crowley remember that night? Did Crowley remember half the nights that Aziraphale did? Supposedly, they were both blessed (Crowley retroactively) with gifted memories, but Aziraphale’s chosen companion forever seemed to be forgetting things. Perhaps he’d chosen to remember other things, like tormenting fevered politicians for bribery or 19th century authors for buggery.

  Good heavens. Why was _Aziraphale_ remembering that night?

  Slowly, Aziraphale lowered his grip on the handle, clasping his hands in his lap and fussing with his seatbelt. Nervous as he was for his current predicament, the demon would never crash. It would always be a miraculous escape for his Bentley, sliding out from between two trucks or narrowly avoiding a distracted cyclist.

  Strange, because minor traffic collisions, along with down mobile phone networks, slow internet, and clogged pipes, were some of Crowley’s favorite roundabout ways of tempting humans into anger. Aziraphale was familiar with these inner workings of Crowley’s mind. For a long stretch of time, he’d had to occasionally do his best to imitate them.

  It dawned on him that he had no idea of where they were headed.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Can I tempt you to some lunch?”

  Crowley was meant to tempt people. It was his whole reason for being. Just as Aziraphale’s whole reason for being was to avoid and resist that temptation, and to encourage that behavior in humans.

  For the foreseeable future, Crowley wasn’t supposed to tempt, and Aziraphale wasn’t supposed to resist. The worst part of this was that Crowley was very talented at tempting people.

  “You don’t even eat.” Aziraphale said, failing to keep the irritation from his voice. “You drink. Why do you always invite me to lunch when you don’t even eat?”

  “I _do._ ”

  “But not with me. You don’t eat with me. Why?”

  The Bentley took a dramatic turn. Aziraphale’s stomach, which he did not possess in the same capacity that humans did, dropped. He felt vaguely sick. He should have agreed to lunch and left it alone.

  “You know what I hate?” Crowley asked suddenly.

  “Oh, you haven’t answered my question.”

  “I don’t care,” Crowley bulldozed. “You know what I hate?”

  Disappointed, Aziraphale sighed helplessly. “Everything?”

  “Funny, angel. But wrong, no, I hate those big, posh restaurants you eat at.”

  Aziraphale deflated.

  “You know,” Crowley went on, wrenching the steering wheel to the right and skidding soundlessly around a turn that normally would’ve made a sound, “the ones that say _gourmet_ and _artisan_ everywhere. It all boils down to meaning ‘good’.”

  “Not all synonyms are the same. It’s about the feeling of the words and what they evoke. It’s about connotation, and making humans think about delicacies.”

  “Humans, and one certain angel,” Crowley said, eyeing him as the Bentley steered itself.

  It was the same stare that Crowley had fixed him with for thousands of years. Faded yellow, half a glare, a little leering, with the edge of a smirk to his serpentine voice. The snake by his ear twisted its position, just a bit, enough for Aziraphale to put together that Crowley’s mind was whirring as fast as the engine beneath them.

  But now, unlike in Eden and Cairo and Paris and Johannesburg and Rome, Aziraphale was pinned by his stare. Not by magic, in the literal sense, but something entirely _other._ Unable to speak, Aziraphale opened and shut his mouth several times, until Crowley glanced back to the road and broke the spell.

  It made Aziraphale realize again what he had realized that cold London night in 1941.

  Except, now he realized that it could no longer be ignored.

  This is what brought him to the _oh, no._

  Aziraphale gaped at Crowley’s sharp profile.

   _Oh, no. This can’t possibly be part of the Plan._

  "Is it warm in here?" Aziraphale asked as an aside, tugging at his collar. 

  “I hate those big posh places. Angel,” Crowley said, “we’re going somewhere _good_.”

  Aziraphale peered over the long dashboard, trying to lose himself in the black upholstery. He clenched his hand tightly at his knee, panic swirling through his head and making him sweat.

  “I made the M25 to look like a web on purpose,” Crowley said, veering off onto the exit for the M23. Despite being rush hour, there was continual open space ahead of them. If it were up to Aziraphale, which it was, there would hardly be any traffic, so that they could get to their destination quicker, and he could return to his London shop and have a meltdown in the comfort of his own home. “It’s all - evil, and the like.”

  “Oh, so now you’re going to say your side invented spiders?” Aziraphale’s voice was strangled.

  “No, but humans commodified their image enough to associate them with Halloween, didn’t they? And Halloween’s bad.”

  “It’s not bad, it’s fun.” He’d dressed up many times over the centuries. Sometimes, with Crowley. This turned out sour in 1818, when the Headless Horseman was still prone to appear in Sleepy Hollow, New York. It had been yet another instance of Crowley showing up in the nick of time, pulling Aziraphale from a crowd of angry humans intent on relieving his corporeal head from his shoulders. 

  “Nah.”

  Aziraphale gazed out the window wearily. “Where are we _going_ , Crowley?” ‘Out to lunch’ didn’t exactly answer the question. And they were on the road away from London, where many of the finest establishments were.

  “Crawley.”

  Aziraphale looked back up, surprised. “You’re going by Crawley again? I - quite liked Crowley.”

  “We’re going _to_ Crawley.”

   He searched his memory. “Crawley? Is that in Ireland?”

  Crowley rubbed the wheel. “Can’t go to Ireland. Saint Patrick banished me awhile back. Crawley’s halfway to Brighton. You’re so clever, don’t be dim.”

  Being an angel didn’t make you dim.

  Crowley’s definition of ‘somewhere good’ happened to be a seedy place in Crawley, which really was halfway to Brighton. Near the casino and a few hotels, the small sit-down restaurant was cramped, stuffy, and every tiled surface appeared to be gleaming with a fine layer of grease.

  None of the several other patrons in the place seemed to mind. Aziraphale found the atmosphere immensely distressing.

  “All this time,” Aziraphale began. He paused, warily watching Crowley slink into his seat without regard for the grime. At once, Aziraphale’s place was sparkling clean. He slid neatly into the booth opposite Crowley, trying not to touch much. “All this time, and this is the sort of place where you’ve been spending your meals? My dear, we’ve been to Paris, we’ve been to the Ritz!”

  “I prefer it here,” said Crowley, reaching up to scratch a phantom itch on his cheek. Aziraphale was at a loss of what to say to that, plain evidence that Crowley preferred these sorts of beaten-down diners where he could be unknown.

  “It’s so - _local_ ,” said Aziraphale. It was a disguised insult, which Crowley saw through. Aziraphale adjusted his bowtie.

  A waitress came and went, depositing laminated menus on the table, resolutely finding nothing peculiar about a smartly-dressed gentleman and a man wearing sunglasses indoors at a dingy eatery in Crawley. Crowley turned and glanced around the room, bright neon beer advert signs reflecting in his glasses, as if expecting another strange happening that signalled the end of times to occur right now.

  They were both still a tad on edge.

  The ambient love in the place, evidence of regular patrons and usual meals, didn’t help. It was like hot air was being blown down his collar.

  Aziraphale did not lift the menu, distrusting. Sitting straight against the back of the booth, he quickly became unable to remain an accessory to the quiet.

  He pointed at the menus, then the cups, then the napkin dispenser, and motioned to Crowley. “This is plastic. Do you know how awful this is for the oceans?”

  Crowley craned his neck, peering backwards over his seat at the eccentric couple at the next table. “Dreadful. Though, less dreadful now. Every government in the world’s trying to figure how Atlantis disappeared and the oceans became plastic-free in the same instant.”

  Aziraphale missed the Ritz’s crystal. “I suppose if I were human, I might’ve been just as perplexed.” Adam Young clearly had installed a better environment than the one he’d originally changed, following the business with the Kraken.

  He still was a bit perplexed, heavenly as Aziraphale was, for each time he attempted to contemplate the events of last month in lower Tadfield, his mind filled with fog and he became interested in another topic very abruptly.

  Crowley stopped looking around. He faced Aziraphale.

  Crowley leaned forward, elbows on the bare table, nudging a fork to the floor with his elbow. It clattered. Behind his glasses, he squinted suspiciously. “I know the humans have done something to you.”

  “Just the same as they’ve done something to you, my dear.” The fork reappeared alongside the rest of the silverware, clean as a whistle.

  “No, I don’t mean in the sense that I’ve got a spot of - _blegh_ \- _goodness_ , and that you’ve become a bit wicked--”

  Affronted, Aziraphale sputtered, “That’s _strong_ phrasing--”

  “--I mean in the sense that… that they've…” Failing to complete his point, Crowley tossed his hands into the air. He thumped them on the edge of the table, and crossed them next.

  Crowley had more than a mere spot of goodness in him. Aziraphale might one day tell him so again, when their lives and the world weren’t coming to an end before them. Aziraphale thought of the dove. He thought of the books his demon had rescued.

  This could not possibly be part of the Plan, yet Aziraphale waded into deeper water.

  Softly, Aziraphale asked, “You… think it’s the humans that have changed me?”

  “Isn’t it?”

   Aziraphale adjusted the spotted silverware to be in line with the dark grain of the wooden table. To keep from fussing more, he set his wrists against the corner of the table, pressing firmly to steady his head. “No.”

  A hopeful beat. Crowley sneered, drawing tighter into himself. “Yes, it was. You gave those first two your sword. Your _sword,_ Aziraphale. Your literal flaming sword. If I had something so wicked from Below, I would never have given it away.”

  “Well, you’re a demon, you’re not meant to be benevolent.”

   “What am I _meant_ to be, then? Hm?” Crowley cocked a brow. It jumped high above his glasses. Aziraphale stared. “If I’m not meant to be benevolent, what am I meant to be?”

  “You know what you’re meant to be.”

  “Do I? Do _you?_ We don’t seem to be sticking very near to our original job descriptions.”

  Aziraphale blanked for a moment. “Did you actually get one of those?” He asked conspiratorially.

  “No!” Exclaimed Crowley.

  “Oh.” Aziraphale sat back.

  Crowley pointed at him accusingly. “Here it is. Here it is. You think I’m more good than you are bad.”

  “Well, I--”

  “You do, I can smell it on you.”

  For a moment, Aziraphale almost believed that Crowley could. After all, there must have been perks abound to wrangle Crowley into being a demon, hadn’t there been? Crowley would never do a thing he didn’t want to, including ignoring Hell’s demands to provoke Armageddon.

  Wasn’t it true? Was it?

  “I don’t think anything like that.”

  “You _do_ ,” Crowley insisted, half a lip raised. Heat poured from him in pulsing waves, with the oven in the kitchen coming in a close second. “Well, let me tell you, Aziraphale, you and I are just the same - only your badness is a lot harder to see.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Constant moral issues in there,” Crowley tapped his own temple. He had the list ready to go, “when you’re not supposed to think twice about whether to be good or not. You think things you know aren’t alright. The Arrangement, if I need to say more. Possession, even of the willing. You lie, you give away things that aren’t yours, you ask horrendous things about the Plan--”

  “I don’t, I don’t, I - I only think that, perhaps there might’ve been some sort of oversight in one department, some--”

  Crowley’s face lit up. He threw back his head and laughed tremendously loud. The lines by his lips stretched, and a white grin broadened over his face. 

  “You’re _questioning_ the Plan?”

  “Keep your voice down!” Aziraphale’s face burned. _Part of the Plan, part of the Plan_. 

  Incredulous, Crowley spread his arms wide. “No one is listening! Do you not understand that, angel? For the first time since Creation, _all_ of it, not just me and you and Above and Below, _no one_ is listening to us!”

  No one to report to. No obligation to be either good or bad. No one, besides Anthony Crowley.

  “That’s what this is. That’s why you asked in the car if I thought the Plan could be flawed. You’re questioning it.”

  Loudly, Aziraphale said, “I am not questioning the Plan.” But he was. He knitted his mouth together, pursing his lips as Crowley watched intently. His mask broke. Aziraphale rapped his knuckles on the table impatiently. “It’s only, the Great Plan dictated everything that was meant to happen before Armageddon leading up to the war, and the Ineffable Plan dictates everything before, during, and past that, and despite my connections Above, I’ve no idea what’s meant to happen now.”

  “Despite my connections Below, I’ve no idea either. It’s never been written down.”

  “Obviously!”

  It was probably very overwhelming to always have to remember every single thing that had ever happened, was happening, or was going to happen, from the Creation moment, until the real end of times. But Aziraphale knew the Almighty could handle it, they were built for exactly that - even if he felt less surefooted about the Plan’s contents, when it came to his own existence, than he ever had before.

  They needed to discuss what to do next. They could live gluttonously for a long while, but what of after their respective offices discovered they weren’t truly immune to all methods of death penalty? The image of Crowley being dragged back to Hell, back to that cramped, stuffy, rank, dark place that was so clearly the opposite of Crowley’s flat, was enough to make Aziraphale shiver anxiously.

  Aziraphale impatiently examined the wall beside their table, and the tacky eastern wallpaper. 

  “What might we do?” asked Crowley, anticipating Aziraphale.

  “Is there anything we’re supposed to be _working_ towards?” Aziraphale turned back. He was purposeless, in a grand sense. “I could be collecting more books, going more places, spreading - _good_ —“

  “Who are you spreading it _for?_ ” Crowley demanded. “We’re unemployed! Heaven thinks you can withstand hellfire, for Satan’s sake! No angel’s going to come down and give you any direction while they think you can do _that._ As far as Above knows,” Crowley shoved a finger across the table towards Aziraphale, “ _you_ are practically a demon.”

  Reeling, Aziraphale blinked. He hadn’t thought extensively on what it might mean in the long run, for Gabriel and Michael and the like to think of him as Crowley’s companion. It’s exactly what it was, perfectly accurate, yet the declaration of it felt taboo.

  He drew a deep breath. Breathing wasn’t something he needed to do, but humans tended to think it was strange if he went too long without doing it. Throughout the last thousand years, it’d become a habit. “I am an _angel,_ I am holy, I am blessed.”

  “You’ve sinned as much as I have.”

   Aziraphale widened his eyes, offended. “Not nearly!”

  “You have! Just at the wrong _time_! If you’d done what you do now before the Fall, you would’ve Fallen right alongside me!”

  “Why are you saying this?” Aziraphale’s throat tightened. “Why are you so determined for me to admit I’m like you?”

  Crowley stopped, as though he’d recognized how much he was tormenting Aziraphale. He reached up and took off his glasses. With care, he tucked the rims into his breast coat pocket, where they stuck out fashionably. When he looked back to Aziraphale, the dim lighting made his eyes glow.

  The whole of his face was on display now. Sharp, open, sane.

  Aziraphale picked up the menu and fanned himself with it, avoiding Crowley’s piercing gaze. Tension grew monumental between them, two disquieted beings of pure feeling. “My, where _is_ that server?”

  “Having a smoke out back, don’t pretend as if you aren’t keeping her there.”

  “She’s very interested in the sidewalk cracks. Wanted to be a mason.”

  “Aziraphale.” Crowley slid his hand over the table. Upon reaching the middle of it, he hesitantly turned it over, exposing his palm to the air. His fingers fluttered like he was experiencing some ghostly sensation. Or like he was beckoning Aziraphale to come forth.

  Aziraphale glanced around. But Crowley was right. No one was watching them. Not anymore.

  Tentatively, Aziraphale twisted his arm, setting his own hand into the cup of Crowley’s. Crowley’s fingers curled around his. Aziraphale fancied he could feel each ridge of Crowley’s fingerprints on the edge of his knuckles. Crowley’s thumb delicately rubbed the golden ring on Aziraphale’s little finger.

  Crowley’s touch was meant to burn. Was he just good at hiding it? They had shaken hands in time before. But this felt distinctly different. It was warm and bold, like the touch of a human. 

  “Aziraphale,” Crowley repeated. Gentler, this time. “Why are you questioning it all? I thought we had finished with our questions.”

  “I’m - fine with the Plan, in the grand scheme of things,” Aziraphale admitted, unable to tear his eyes from where their hands were touching. It felt as if Aziraphale could stop Crowley from Falling, or the other way around. “It’s, it’s the particulars I’m concerned with.”

  “Which particulars?” Crowley didn’t say it was moronic to be worried, or that Armageddon was passed and might they be content, now? It calmed Aziraphale, soothed his feathers flat, to not be doubted by the one face he’d seen on earth for six thousand years. The only face he could bear to be around for so long, the only face he’d ever missed.

  Aziraphale’s hand twitched. He might never see Crowley’s face again, after this. He could imagine the uncomfortable, awkward rejection. “The… particulars of the Plan involving… involving you and I. Our feeling. If you must know.”

  He began to retract his hand, but Crowley gripped him unexpectedly.

  “Crowley--” he began, voice high.

  “Demons don’t feel.”

  They didn’t, of course they didn’t, but Crowley was holding him so tightly. 

 Aziraphale swallowed. He should’ve cleared his throat, manually or miraculously, but neglected to. His waterline pricked. “A bit silly of me, I know.” He tried a smile, and raised his other hand, bringing it to cover the pair already on the table. He tenderly pried Crowley’s fingers from his own. “But, my friend, you asked, and it isn’t in an angel’s nature to lie--”

  “Bull.”

  “What?”

  “I said _bull._ You’ve been lying for centuries. That’s one of the things you do, you lie. You nearly lied the day we first met. Come off it, Aziraphale!”

  Aziraphale jerked, whipping his hands from Crowley’s. “You remember me _lying_ the day we met?” There were so many other things to remember! Adam, Eve’s child, the apple, his sword, Crowley’s long red curls! The dreaded failure of being outwitted by a wily serpent! 

  Crowley struck the table with his fork, drawing attention from two men at the bar. As quickly, Azriaphale made them lose interest with the loud argument.

  Crowley insisted, “ _Nearly_. You’ve lied just now, when you said you weren’t questioning the Plan. You completely are.”

  “Why do we keep coming back to the Plan? The Plan’s going to happen, _is happening,_ no matter what I think!”

  “What is it you think!”

  “I think something might have gone terribly wrong!”

  “Terribly wrong…” Crowley faltered. “Terribly wrong with the particulars involving you and I?”

  Aziraphale was on the brink. “Yes,” he admitted, tired voice breaking.

  “In what way?”

  A surprised laugh escaped Aziraphale. “You’ve, you’ve just said it. Demons don’t feel love.”

  Crowley squinted, like he was processing where Aziraphale had gotten that idea. His eyes flickered to the side in contemplation, then back again. “Yes, but since you’re practically a demon, it means I’m practically an angel.”

  Heavens, Crowley had never been so crass! What was so disturbing to him that he had to resort to calling himself an angel?

  In disbelief, Aziraphale laughed painfully again. Leave it to Crowley to come up with such absurd notions. “I haven’t said— I haven’t said a word. You haven’t let me say what I wish to say.”

  “No, what I’m hearing,” Crowley’s hand on the table curled into a fist, “is that you think there’s something the matter between you and I. That something is _wrong_.”

  “Something _is_ wrong, Crowley. We were never meant to meet, let alone the rest of this.”

   “Then why put me in the Garden? Why put you in the Garden the same afternoon? Seems an awful lot of work, post two hereditary enemies at the same time and place. We were always meant to meet.”

  “We weren’t meant to continue meeting, then,” Aziraphale managed. “You were never meant to tempt me, and you have, you have at _every_ turn—“

  “It’s lunch, Aziraphale! It’s not salacious!” 

  Anything was salacious with a demon. Aziraphale’s teeth clicked together. “It’s not. It wasn’t lunch. It wasn’t ever about lunch. And it wasn’t ever about who should tempt who or commit what miracle to save the other’s skin. It was just about _you_ , Crowley.” Aziraphale could no longer rein himself in.

  The server picked this moment to return. She set a plate of something involving basil and tomatoes and mozzarella before Aziraphale, and a small bowl of spicy-smelling rice noodles before Crowley. They hadn’t ordered. She retreated to the kitchen or maybe out back again.

  Feeling slightly diffused, Aziraphale steadied himself. It wouldn’t do to go out and admit to Crowley all that was within him. But - he felt petulant to prove that he was not a liar. 

  “This is a Thai restaurant. They don’t have salads,” Aziraphale pointed out. 

  He couldn’t stay in deep conversation for very long. The worry within him grew exponentially. How long could he be expected to keep this secret?

  _Forever_ , he’d decided it had to be that night in war-torn London.

  But now Forever had arrived. 

  His mouth was dry, and his face felt stiff with paralyzing nerves. He didn’t immediately tuck into his food like usual.

  Forever had arrived, no one was watching them, and there was no conceivable reason besides rejection to keep it to himself. Rejection from Crowley, however, had terrifying implications. Angels were responsible for spreading love, but Aziraphale saw no point to it if he had to continue on for eternity alone.

  His secret was bleeding through his every _dear Crowley,_ seeping up through each crack in the wall.

  “I said you had to go to lunch with me, not that I was going to force you to eat Thai food. I know you can’t stand it since the Siamese Revolution.”

  Aziraphale smiled. Crowley watched intently. This was the longest Aziraphale had seen him without his glasses on in years. “You remember Siam.” 

  Crowley looked down at his hand. To be specific, it was the one Aziraphale had held in his a moment ago. Crowley seemed, for lack of a better word, bashful. 

  “I remember most everything, Aziraphale. I remember the Garden most vividly.”

  “We’re getting away from topic...” Aziraphale started. 

  “No. I know the topic.” Crowley plunged the fork into his bowl, twirling it as though they were back in nineteenth century Italy. “And I know what I’ve said. I remember the Garden; I remember everything. Why aren’t you eating?”

  Crowley raised the fork to his mouth, welcoming the serving of Thai. His jaw clicked when he chewed.

  “I’m - I have no appetite, Crowley.”

  Aziraphale did have an appetite, but only for the wrong things.

  “Say what you wish to say,” the demon said, swallowing, “and you may grow to have one, you liar.”

  Again with the lying point. Aziraphale frowned. He didn’t feel hungry, he felt trapped, caught on spiderwebs of tact and manner between Above and Below.

  Crowley held up a hand and snapped his fingers. The salad plate transformed into gleaming rolls of salmon sushi. “Are you craving something else? It could be anything you wanted.”

  Miracled food never tasted the same. Humans had a way of making imperfect things perfectly. 

  Aziraphale shook his head. Crowley returned the dish back to the original salad. 

  Aziraphale’s skin prickled. 

  He opened his mouth, closed it. Opened it again. Crowley, interest piquing, regarded him like a snake eyeing a meal.

  This was not the sort of place Aziraphale had always fantasized doing this. Were he to have his pick, it would have been in his London shop, or Mesopotamia, perhaps with gentle rain or ambient sounds of sand and rivers. 

  Outside, it began to drizzle.

  “It’s difficult to say.” This could not be happening. It was the only thing left to admit. Crowley knew he was questioning the Plan and didn’t run away. “Perhaps even foolish of me to admit. But being an angel I cannot help it - I love you.”

  Aziraphale imagined he heard Crowley draw a sharp breath. After a pause, the demon blew it out of pursed lips. He leaned forwards on the table, propping on an elbow and pushing his bowl aside after only one bite. He did not meet Aziraphale’s gaze.

  “You’re blaming it on your nature. Your nature that you don’t follow.” The lines around Crowley’s forehead softened, bewilderment settling in. He shook his head, focus jumping from one of Aziraphale’s blue eyes to the other. “You love everything, Aziraphale. It’s strange to love a demon, but I suppose you can manage anything.”

  Is that what Crowley thought? 

  Had he always thought that? Every instance where Aziraphale’s had been especially kind, or tried to be more outwardly interested... had Crowley thought it all a part of being an angel?

  Aziraphale  _didn’t_ love everything. He loved plenty, in an angelic fashion. The creatures on the planet, the magma at its core, the stars in the sky, and Alpha Centauri. 

  But he disliked things, too. Disliked summer heat in Egypt, despised the sewer system in general, hated some of the humans he’d met, when all he was ever supposed to do was love them. Disliked Heaven, for Heaven’s sake! Blank and sterile, brimming with unkempt white feathers. And always so terribly cold, like someone had left a fan on all through the night. 

  Aziraphale blinked at his companion. He had come to his second realization of the day. Never had he needed a strongly brewed cocoa so badly. “I... _don’t_ love everything.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t love everything. My dear, you are right. I am hardly an angel.”

  What angel avoided promotions, found a demon for a lifelong companion, and questioned the Ineffable Plan?

   Crowley appeared to think Aziraphale was having a crisis. “Aziraphale, I was angry, don’t—“

  “But you’re right. Even if you said it while angry. I don’t love everything. And I lie. And I’m questioning the Plan. I’m hardly an angel!” Aziraphale’s heart thundered beneath his sternum. “Crowley, whatever you are. I know we are the same. My nature, I don’t follow it. But I follow you. We’ve been on our own side since long before the Enemy, Crowley.”

  Crowley didn’t answer. 

  Aziraphale pressed on, emboldened by himself. “I love you, specifically. If the humans have changed me, that’s the way they’ve done it.”

  The only way. Everything else was a result of Crowley. Crowley, who was unlike anyone Above or Below or on earth or the moon or Alpha Centauri.

  Crowley still didn’t answer. 

  Aziraphale stood up, shoulders tired and heavy. For a moment, he cast a glance to the salad. He could get something on the way home to his bookshop. No miracles, he would walk all the way to London from this dingy eatery. Or catch the night train out to Brighton and back to London in the morning. All of eternity to think about how much better this confessional could have gone.

  “Sit down, angel,” whispered Crowley.

  “I’m quite fine with the arrangement as it is. That’s not to say _the_ Arrangement, I only meant...”

  The demon halted, furrowing his brows. His eyes looked unnaturally wet. His voice came out high and breathy, like it had been strangled out of him. “What arrangement?”

  At a loss, Aziraphale gestured down at the air between the two of them. Them, together! “This. Anthony,” he called Crowley awkwardly, “Us, having lunch. It can still happen. I don’t mean to insinuate anything change by telling you that I...”

  Aziraphale stopped, not able to say it for a third time.

  Just lunch was enough with Crowley. Angels were built to yearn. Aziraphale had been doing it for long enough - perhaps he really was of angel stock and nothing else. Maybe another hundred years or so would cool him off.

  Nothing had to change. But he wanted it to. Desperately.

  Crowley paused. He looked away, turning his face down. The serpent tattoo beside his ear thrashed in turmoil. “If you still don’t like the name, I’ll change it.”

  Why wasn’t Crowley saying anything of merit? Usually, Aziraphale could argue that everything Crowley said was important, but whatever path Crowley was on about now, it didn’t matter! There was no concealed answer in what Crowley was saying, he was merely derailing Aziraphale.

  Aziraphale smoothed down his waistcoat, preparing to go. If luck was on his side, which it always was, it wouldn’t still be raining when he stepped out. “Thank you for the ride.”

  Crowley abruptly stood, smacking his palms flat on the tabletop. Aziraphale marveled at his long fingers that somehow sunk into the wood, like a cat at a scratching post, before he remembered himself.

  Aziraphale strode out. 

  The English drizzle greeted him, spattering on the shoulders of his cream coat. Dear. What had happened? What had he done? He hadn't planned on this at all. 

  He rounded the corner of the brick restaurant, the black of the Bentley coming into view. Water rivulets sluiced off of it, reflecting the light of neon in the restaurant windows. The night was bleak and wet, damp in the way that the end of summer always was in the last days before the leaves changed. The air was cooler out here. 

  "Oh, goodness," he murmured miserably to himself, coming to stand beside the passenger's side. He should've gotten out of the car as soon as Crowley had looked at him. It was unlikely he would find himself driving along with Crowley again. 

  When he held up a palm, an umbrella appeared in his grip. Aziraphale unfurled it and held it over his head. It was the sort of umbrella that was more like a parasol, one Crowley would mock him for, but it was best to stop thinking about what Crowley would think of it. There wasn't any point to considering Crowley's fashion advice anymore. Aziraphale squinted down the drive they'd pulled in from. Best to head that way. 

  “I know what it’s like to lose you, angel,” exclaimed a voice from behind him, “don’t make me do it again! Aziraphale - Aziraphale stop walking!”

   Aziraphale whirled around, the umbrella spinning rainwater. His mouth popped open as Crowley paced towards him from the exit of the restaurant, halting a length away. He held none of his usual swagger, with his dark auburn hair pasted down in the rain. His hands were curled into shaking fists at his side, elbows tucked close to his body. His jaw flexed.

  They were both standing now, but Crowley’s posture had gone defensive and rigid. As if he had a reason to be defensive! Crowley had risked nothing and given him no true answer. That, in itself, was an answer. 

  The demon stepped nervously forward, stepping over soaking grass, but Aziraphale refused to cower. 

  “I feel,” Crowley announced, voice cracking. He straightened, “I felt when you were gone and I felt when we met.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I felt when we were apart,” continued Crowley. As he had in the Bentley, he fixed Aziraphale with his stare. It made him quiver. “It’s been a long time since it came on. I’ve been waiting, Aziraphale.”

  Aziraphale stopped. 

  Slowly, he smiled. 

  There had been few, exceedingly rare points in their friendship when they didn't automatically understand one another. Apparently, the angel was realizing, the love lost between them was the heart of their issues.

  Crowley relaxed, tension easing, and he pushed past Aziraphale and slumped his back against the Bentley’s door, like all the fight had gone from him and he was left with mountains of fatigue. He raked a hand through his hair, spiking it, and drew a ragged breath. 

  “You’ve been remarkably patient,” said Aziraphale. _Remarkably patient despite my idiocies and inadequacies_. A virtue.

  “My angel,” Crowley said, a new name. Aziraphale’s face went pink.

  Crowley sniffed. Aziraphale would have thought Crowley were upset if he didn’t reach across the chasm between them to gather Aziraphale’s hands once more. 

  Warmth, like a snake that had been basking in the sun for a long, long while, greeted Aziraphale’s skin. Aziraphale was pulled in, nudging his ankle between Crowley’s and crowding him back against the car. Crowley's grasp fitted around where Aziraphale held the umbrella over them both. The rain pattered on the canopy, dripping off the edges. 

  The dimple Aziraphale had seen in Crowley’s chin that day of Armageddon in the pub reappeared. It wobbled. As a man and a divine being, Aziraphale longed to touch it.

  “Crowley... oh.”

  “It’s just been an awfully long time. I didn't think I would hear you say things like that.”

  Crowley clutched Aziraphale’s hands. Aziraphale resolved to say many better things in the future. 

  "You haven't said it back," said Aziraphale. It didn't mean Aziraphale felt it any less. Crowley wasn't meant to be so warm. It was all the love pouring out of him. 

  "Need I?" Crowley shifted against the bulk of the car. Neon blue and red lit up half his face, casting the other in stark shadow. His yellow eyes burned into Aziraphale's. Without the barrier of the glasses to shield them, Aziraphale observed how his brow curved up, how the snake at his ear had curled into a different shape, worried and distressed. He wanted to be known, Aziraphale thought, or else he would have replaced the glasses. 

  "I think so, yes," Aziraphale said, breathless. Crowley's mouth was as rain-glazed as the rest of his face. Aziraphale looked back up. "Or this might just be another misunderstanding."

  "Have we had a lot of those?"

  "Some. Enough."

  Aziraphale turned his head, leaning into Crowley, allowing their lips to connect. One of Crowley's hand flew up to hold the side of Aziraphale's face, long fingers sliding into thin blond curls. Oh, oh. After a century and six millennia, it felt better than Heaven or home ever had. 

  He pulled away. Crowley’s eyes stayed closed, fluttering open dreamily after a moment. Aziraphale rested his nose to Crowley’s, wearily sinking into him.

  "You're very warm, my dear."

  Crowley let out a laugh of disbelief, getting imperceptibly warmer still. Aziraphale felt the breath on his face. Their bodies tilted together, joined hands pressing between their chests. "Don't tell me you still care what the Plan may say about this."

  Aziraphale smiled, tucking his chin. "I couldn't give a damn."

**Author's Note:**

> so I read good omens this past Christmas, and then the show came out. sue me.  
> psa the characterization in the books vs the show is a tad different, so I've put in a mix of both. happy pride


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